About Me

My life was described by one of my editors as “impossibly exotic” – although really it was not my life, but me, that was the exotic, the uprooted plant, the one who didn’t belong, always living in someone else’s backyard...
Now I am back in Australia, the returning native learning to live where I was born. Writer, traveler, environmentalist. Author of The Isles of Glory trilogy (The Aware, Gilfeather, The Tainted); The Mirage Makers trilogy (Heart of the Mirage, Shadow of Tyr, Song of the Shiver Barrens); The Stormlord trilogy The Last Stormlord, Stormlord Rising, Stormlord's Exile, and writing as Glenda Noramly, a stand-alone book Havenstar. LATEST:
THE FORSAKEN LANDS
A clash of cultures and magic as traders and buccaneers hunt for spices and wealth in the Va-forsaken half of the world ... even as the unidentified darkness of plague and murder stalks their own land.
THE LASCAR'S DAGGER and THE DAGGER'S PATH available worldwide now! Final book, THE FALL OF THE DAGGER out mid-April.

Friday, October 13, 2006

Trilogy recaps: a thin line between boring and nonsense

First let me say this: every now and then I feel cheered by the human race. There I was, grinding my teeth and feeling loathing towards all anonymous, horrible, scummy spammers whom I would cheerfully murder if they ever dared to admit their identity - when a whole lot of people left a comment commiserating and/or giving advice. Thank you, people. Some of you I didn't even know, yet you gave of your time to help. A little thing, but you remind me of all that is good with the world...

I loved the discussion on last Saturday's thread. Many thanks for that too. As was mentioned there, it is always difficult to decide how to treat the question of recapping the story of the previous volumes of a trilogy for readers who have a time gap between reading the three books. A summary synopsis at the beginning? Subtle reminders scattered throughout the book?

I've always preferred the latter. Reading a synopsis inevitably leaves my head stuffed with information, which, out of context, seems incomprehensible in such abbreviated form.

The Mirage Makers trilogy (Book 1 Heart of the Mirage already out in Australia and due out in May in UK; book 2 The Shadow of Tyr already delivered to the publishers and Book 3 Song of the Shiver Barrens way over deadline...) offers particular difficulties for this reason:In Book 2, apart from a few chapters, the main characters are in a different location from Book 1. So much of the mystery that was covered in Book 1 does not get resolved until Book 3, (nothing unusual in that) - the trouble being that it is only mentioned in passing in Book 2. The reader is not being constantly reminded of it.

When my beta readers (bless 'em) read the early draft of book 3, they were thoroughly confused because I didn't have enough recap.

So now I am trying to get a balance between boring readers silly, especially the ones who remember everything about the Mirage and the Ravage from Book 1, or being totally incomprehensible to other readers who remember very little. All relevant to the discussion of whether a trilogy is best if it is one book divided arbitarily into three, or three linked books each with an ending.

What a writer aims for is a "Oh, why didn't I see that coming?" moment, not a "Where the hell did that come from?" moment, and certainly not a "Geez, this is boring" moment. And achieving the right balance in those subtle recaps is tough.

3 comments:

I agree that sprinkling mentions of the most important issues from book 1 and 2 through subsequent books is best. Also agree that it is hard to do right. Too much and you annoy the reader, too little and you confuse them.

Glenda, a question regarding beta readers...

Do you use the same beta readers for the whole trilogy, or for books 2 and 3, do you get someone who hasn't read the other book/s? I ask because I think if you can draw in a new reader with book 2 or 3 without confusion, then you've done something very very right in regards to recapping.

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Awards

BEST FANTASY NOVEL OF THE YEAR Shortlisted Finalist2003: for The Aware; 2004: for The Tainted; 2006: for Heart of the Mirage; 2007: for The Song of the Shiver Barrens; 2009: for The Last Stormlord 2010: for Stormlord Rising 2011: for Stormlord's Exile 2014: The Lascar's Dagger 2015: The Dagger's Path 2016: The Fall of the Dagger